Working with Pay Periods

Managing payroll within PracticeQ ensures payroll calculations always reflect accurate billing data which boosts efficiency and compliance. Reduce errors by eliminating the need to switch between systems, juggle data imports, and manually reconcile information! 

By closing out income periods, this will lock down that time period so that anything with a payment date of a previous pay period will show as an adjustment in the current pay period.

PracticeQ Accounting

The PracticeQ income report is based off of the date the payment was entered in the system which is typically referred to as "cash-based" accounting. 

In cash based accounting, revenues and expenses are recorded when cash is actually received or paid. This is in contrast to "accrual basis accounting," where revenues and expenses are recorded when they are earned or incurred, regardless of when the cash is received or paid.

Cash-based accounting is generally simpler than accrual accounting because it only tracks cash exchanges.

We are looking at adding other data points to allow accrual accounting including DOS,

Pay Periods Settings

To begin closing out pay periods to manage your earning cycles, go to your pay period settings, on the More > Team > Payroll tab. The below options are available.

Closing Pay Periods Automatically

  1. Choose your Closing Type
    1. Manual
      1. User must manually close pay periods from the income report
      2. Note: The frequency can still used to define the display of the income report and provide shortcuts when changing the date filter
    2. Auto-Close
      1. Pay periods are automatically closed on the day following the end of the last pay period.

Choose your Pay Period Frequency (Required)

    1. Unidentified
      1. This setting will not close the period automatically and will not provide any shortcuts in the Income Report to view the income at the desired intervals
    2. Weekly
      1. Can set the day to close the period
    3. Bi-Weekly
      1. Can set last closing date. This will start the new pay period from that date.
    4. Semi-Monthly
      1. Can select first and second closing date. This will close the periods on those dates.
    5. Monthly
      1. Can set closing date. This will close the period on that date every month. 

Note: To get the "Close Pay Period" button on the income report, a "Pay Period Frequency" must be defined.

Closing Out a Pay Period Manually

To close out the period manually, go to Reports > Income.

  1. Click the Close Period button from a generated income report under Reports > Income
  2. You can choose the date range for the pay period and click the green button. This will close down the defined pay period and put the reports under the "Reports > Income > Pay Periods" tab for your review.

Viewing Adjustments in the Income Report

The income report has a section for adjustments. These adjustments will be applied to the current pay period.  

Adjustments are created when the following happens:
  • An invoice payment is recorded using a date within a closed period
  • An invoice payment is deleted from a closed period
  • An invoice is transferred from a closed period between practitioners
  • Deleting an insurance payment from a closed period
  • Adding an insurance payment for a period that has been closed
  • Editing an insurance payment for a period that has been closed

Note: Opening a closed insurance payment for editing will be added as a negative adjustment. Once the payment is opened, there is no guarantee that the payment will be closed again or which changes will be made. Currently, you can change amounts, date, etc. If/when the user closes the payment, it will be added as a new positive adjustment (assuming the payment date is for a closed period).

Note: You can always move items out as an adjustment and into the current pay period by editing the Payment Date of the payment to the current period.

Viewing Previous Pay Periods

To view previous pay periods after they have closed, click the "Pay Periods" tab and choose the pay period you want to view.

Click "Details" to see the payments and adjustments for that practitioner



Viewing Pay Period Breakdown by Provider

From Reports > Income, click a closed pay period then click the "Details" link next to the provider you wish to see.

You can download or print the PDF or Export to CSV for more information.

Exporting to CSV and Deleting Previous Pay Periods

Click the vertical ellipsis on the pay period line to export the period to CSV or delete the pay period altogether.

The CSV has the following columns:

  • Practitioner
  • Client
  • Client ID
  • Type
  • Detail
  • Item Number
  • Payer
  • Date
  • Amount

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